After Qiu Yu left, Chen Ce Bai leaned his head against one hand, staring coldly at a spot in the void for a long time.
Eventually, he rolled down the driver's window, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, stuck one between his lips, cupped his hand around the flame, lit it, and took a drag.
The fire flickered between his sharply defined fingers.
At a glance, anyone would think he was a man of clear principles, dignified and noble.
But just moments ago, he had seriously considered agreeing to Qiu Yu's suggestion—letting her approach the so-called "Observer."
Clearly, his own desire was expanding.
It wasn't enough for her to like the version of him shown to the world.
The dark and shameless monster hidden inside him also wanted her affection.
Chen Ce Bai didn't actually have a smoking habit—he just wanted to purge the lingering scent of Qiu Yu from the car.
But the acrid smoke only made her scent stand out even more vividly, awakening a surge of desire.
After a few puffs, he crushed the cigarette out, unimpressed.
He tossed the cigarette away, put on his glasses, opened the sunroof, and sped off toward the lab.
·
When Qiu Yu arrived at the company, she didn't have time to feel embarrassed about having been seen kissing a colleague, nor relieved that the rumors had finally been cleared. Her supervisor immediately called her into the office.
He handed her a flash chip, gesturing for her to insert it behind her ear, saying it contained information on a new project.
She did as instructed, and instantly, countless glowing blue lines exploded in her vision, assembling slowly rotating holograms of various individuals.
Each one was a world-renowned scientist.
She wasn't surprised to see Chen Ce Bai among them.
Compared to the others—disheveled and eccentric—he looked detached, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, bearing the quiet grandeur of a mountain at dawn. He stood out starkly.
That striking appearance was a double-edged sword.
It made him the most recognizable scientist in the world, but also the most controversial.
Her supervisor said, "We're planning a documentary series called Inside the Mind of a Scientist. It'll focus on the everyday lives of these researchers, to bridge the gap between scientists and the public. We think you're the perfect person to host it."
Qiu Yu frowned slightly. "But…"
Her supervisor continued, "We won't film anything personal between you and Mr. Chen—just his work, and maybe a bit of what he's like after hours. If you can create a sense of contrast, great. If not, that's fine too."
She had planned to refuse, but she remembered how, when she visited a therapist recently, she couldn't even explain what field Chen Ce Bai worked in. So, she nodded in agreement.
Her supervisor looked pleased. "We haven't finalized the filming schedule yet. You can start thinking about the structure. Once it's set, we'll let you know."
After removing the flash chip, Qiu Yu left the office.
She understood that the reason she was chosen to host had a lot to do with her marriage to Chen Ce Bai.
After all, in the entertainment industry, biotech was the only field that lacked an advantage.
To compete with other companies' entertainment divisions, Biotech had acquired a few production studios, trying to launch "sapiosexual celebrities" for niche audiences.
But it flopped.
Audiences didn't care for brooding stars reading One Hundred Years of Solitude at home. They preferred celebrities with messy, scandalous private lives.
Eventually, the company seemed to realize: why manufacture a fake intellectual celebrity when you could just film real intellectuals?
By standard media logic, Chen Ce Bai's interview would no doubt be saved for the finale.
Qiu Yu decided to start by learning more about the other scholars.
She downloaded the data from the flash chip and began compiling profiles one by one.
But when she reached the last one, she paused.
Most Biotech employees over a certain age opted for synthetic skin grafts—not just for aesthetics, but also for protection: anti-flame, bulletproof, EM-shielding features.
Yet this man had kept his original skin.
He looked worn out. Though only in his forties, he had the exhaustion of someone in his sixties.
What shocked her most was that he was an expert in biochemical chips. The upcoming nanosecond-level chip was the crown jewel of his team.
Qiu Yu found herself curious, jotting down his name—Lu Ze Hou.
Possibly due to a triggered keyword, she suddenly received a string of spam messages:
[Click to uncover the real Chen Ce Bai: https://sbpk.ccbXXXXXX]
[Click to uncover the real Ke Yueling: https://sbpk.kylXXXXXX]
[Click to uncover the real Suzuki Yasuko: https://sbpk.lmkzXXXXXX]
They were identical to the junk texts she'd received before—likely generated by a fake base station based on keyword triggers.
She was about to delete them when her eyes caught on the last message.
Unlike the rest, its format and link were completely different.
[Ostracized, suppressed, yet developed the nanosecond chip—how should we view Lu Ze Hou's life? https://luzehou.lzhXXXXXX]
Curious, Qiu Yu switched to her tablet and opened the site.
The video was short—just a few minutes. A robotic voice narrated Lu Ze Hou's background and current research, calling him "the scientist most likely to save the world."
These videos were typically produced by anti-corporate groups.
The scientists they praised didn't always have ties to them; those they attacked weren't necessarily innocent, either.
Qiu Yu didn't find any useful info, and was about to close it when the next recommended video title caught her eye:
[A beacon of the underclass turned elite—Is Chen Ce Bai a true genius, or a manufactured myth?]
Her brows knitted. She instinctively wanted to report the video—but realized it wasn't an official site, and there was no such option.
She was going to exit the page, but the next video had already auto-played.
"Chen Ce Bai. Male. Born January 10th, 2047 in a slum district of Yu City. Father unknown. Mother survived by scavenging and died of illness.
In 2085, at 85 years old, he enrolled in a top university, studying biotechnology. After earning his PhD, he pursued further degrees in chemistry, mathematics, genetic engineering. Since joining Biotech, he has continued his education, and now holds 32 doctoral degrees.
Official reports claim Chen Ce Bai has an IQ of 240, the highest in the world.
But all of this is just a corporate narrative meant to pacify the masses.
You really think someone raised on polluted water, insects, and synthetic fibers could become a 240-IQ genius?
The corporate elites—raised in 25°C greenhouses, fed organic beef and lab-grown veggies, wearing silk, and using gene-edited sperm—can't even produce a genius like that.
So why do you think you, surviving on acid rain and garbage, could?
Wake up! This 'super genius' is a lie. A marketing tool. He exists to lull us into submission.
Wake up—especially those still worshipping Chen Ce Bai.
If he's such a genius, why does his wife keep her distance?
Surely the benevolent Ms. Qiu isn't shunning him because of his humble origins?"
Qiu Yu flinched at the mention of her name.
Only then did she realize—their marriage had become ammunition in the smear campaign.
If Chen Ce Bai had truly loved her that deeply all this time…
Then for the past three years, how had he endured sharing a roof, a bed, with someone so distant?
Feeling a bit guilty, Qiu Yu sent him a meme.
It was an old, tearful cat emoji—so widely used that its lines were blurred by decades of digital wear.
Chen Ce Bai, of course, had never seen such a bizarre cat. It didn't even look feline anymore, just a vague, weepy creature.
He frowned slightly, paused for two seconds, and called her.
A video call.
Qiu Yu had just been asking a hacker friend if there was any way to take down the website. The sudden video request startled her.
Before she could hang up, it auto-connected.
She suddenly remembered—late last night, bored in bed, she'd switched all Chen Ce Bai's contact settings to auto-answer (unless in a meeting), just to avoid misunderstandings.
Qiu Yu: "..."
She quietly changed it back.
Chen Ce Bai's figure appeared—dressed in a silver protective suit, just finishing an experiment. He hadn't even taken it off.
Only his cold, narrow eyes were visible.
And this time, he wasn't using a tablet—he'd called her via chip.
It felt like he was standing right in front of her. She could even clearly see the tightening of his waist.
Qiu Yu's gaze lingered there for two seconds.
Chen Ce Bai didn't seem to notice. He walked into a sterile chamber, and right in front of her, stripped off the skintight suit, tossing it aside, revealing a lean and powerful build.
His physique matched her tastes exactly—tall, slender, lithe muscles, prominent collarbones, wrists, elbows, ankles.
For someone with such an aloof aura, his eyes and body both radiated a wolf-like aggressiveness.
Qiu Yu: "...…"
Her scalp tingled. She instinctively covered the tablet's screen… then realized this wasn't on a tablet at all.
"I'm still at work!" she hissed.
Mist swirled through the disinfection chamber.
Chen Ce Bai stood calmly in the center, letting mechanical arms dress him in a shirt, trousers, and trench coat.
While fastening his cuffs, he glanced at her. "But you like watching."
"Maybe—but time and place matters!"
He responded matter-of-factly, "But it's only in this setting that you find it exciting."
He knew her tastes too well.
Qiu Yu was speechless.
Annoyed, she changed the subject. "Why'd you call?"
Chen Ce Bai hesitated slightly, as if weighing his words.
Finally, he put on his glasses and stared directly at her through the lenses.
"You cried. Why?"
Qiu Yu was confused. "I didn't cry."
"You sent a crying cat. Cats don't cry unless they have an eye condition or something stuck in their eye. You're not sick, so I assume it was an emotional metaphor." He stared without blinking. "I want to know what triggered that emotion."
Qiuyu was moved—but also deeply embarrassed. Her cheeks flushed hot with awkwardness.
She muttered, "Don't you go online?"
That crying cat meme had taken the internet by storm not long ago, sparking a wave of nostalgic humor. But Chen Ce Bai didn't seem to recognize it at all.
"I use network access services," he replied calmly. "But I don't use online entertainment platforms. They contain too much misinformation and emotional extremism—it clouds judgment."
He paused thoughtfully. "Last night, while I was in the shower, I heard you watching several short videos. Was that what they were about?"
Qiuyu's face turned bright red.
The videos she watched were things like 'One-Minute Movie Recaps', '30-Second Reasons Not to Get a Cat', and 'Come Watch This Kitten Poop'.
The comment sections were even worse—just meme references and jokes, not a single serious discussion.
Like:
"People in 2035: I wonder what humanity will achieve with holographic networks 50 years from now!"
"People in 2073: Watching kittens poop."
One commenter, whose profile said they were 75 years old, wrote:
"...I've been seeing this same joke since I was in my twenties."
At first, Qiuyu thought Chen Ce Bai was out of touch, even felt secondhand embarrassment watching him dissect the crying cat meme like it was a linguistic artifact.
But now she found it impressive—how he could remain rational in a flood of information, resisting the temptation to chase after fleeting trends.
Still...
She thought for a moment, then said, "It's just a reaction image, kind of like an emoji. Haven't your friends ever sent you something like that?"
Qiuyu assumed that Chen Ce Bai's friends were probably all industry elites—too serious for memes.
But to her surprise, he answered plainly, "I don't have any friends."
Although... some people had sent him these random pictures before.
Usually, he would glance at them indifferently and not reply. He never looked too closely—except for the one Qiuyu had sent. That one, he'd studied for a good thirty seconds, analyzing it like a coded message.
Qiuyu was stunned. She remembered how the documentaries described his upbringing. Her heart sank, a sudden, painful heaviness.
She asked softly, "...Have I not cared enough about you? If you want, you can tell me about your past."
Chen Ce Bai narrowed his eyes slightly. "My past?"
Qiuyu nodded. "Like... your mother, where you grew up, how you got into our school... You can even tell me silly stories from when you were a student. If you want."
Chen Ce Bai blinked twice, quickly and without emotion.
A wave of memories surged in his mind.
Mountains of discarded trash—an entire hive built from plastic bags, broken electronics, and corrugated cardboard.
A dark-skinned woman with a shrewd, impatient look. Her hair was tied in a thick braid, braided with golden wire.
She snatched money from a man in a suit, counted it over and over, and then finally smiled—a radiant, genuine smile.
It was the first time he'd seen her that happy.
Then came the sterile white laboratory, and the genetic modification procedure.
To avoid damaging the nervous system, the surgery was done without anesthesia.
Some subjects died from the pain alone.
He survived, barely, experiencing agony so intense it felt like the brink of death.
Out of over a thousand test subjects, only thirteen made it through.
He remembered clearly: the biotech executives had come to "check on" the survivors.
Upon hearing there were thirteen left, one of them remarked:
"Thirteen is an unlucky number."
—At the Last Supper, there were thirteen attendees. The next day, Jesus was betrayed by one of them and crucified.
From that point on, thirteen became a cursed number.
As the executive spoke, one of his bodyguards suddenly pulled a gun and shot one of the test subjects.
Bang—
Hot, viscous blood splashed across Chen Ce Bai's face.
That subject had been lying just one cot away from him.
He was nothing more than a lucky survivor.
Lucky to have lived.
Lucky to have fallen in love with someone like her.
But lately, that luck felt like it was running out.
A terrifying, twisted presence was clawing its way toward him—fighting for control of his body.
…Or perhaps, it wasn't fighting at all.
Perhaps it simply wanted to share the body with him.
Even now, as he looked at her through his glasses, he felt two sets of eyes staring out.
One from a normal angle—calm, rational, human.
The other from a warped, voyeuristic angle—savage, deranged, like something peering through a hole in the wall.
The two visions collided, pressed against each other, tangled until they merged—until they locked onto her and wouldn't let go.
Chen Ce Bai shut his eyes briefly.
He removed his glasses, pulled out a cleansing wipe, and slowly cleaned the lenses.
His voice was cold, commanding, final:
"There's nothing worth telling."